


If Your Own Weight's Too Heavy, Carry Mine

by Badgerhat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: #TMAHCweek, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, feinting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26098273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badgerhat/pseuds/Badgerhat
Summary: Basira takes a gamble that Jon would go a lot farther to help a friend than he would to take care of himself of his own volition (canon-compliant, set roughly mid-season 4)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 122





	If Your Own Weight's Too Heavy, Carry Mine

It probably said something unfortunate about the state of Basira Hussain’s life that when she shouldered open the office door to find the desk empty and Jon’s spindly ankles and feet sprawled across the floor behind it, she was mostly annoyed before she was alarmed. She paused for a moment in the doorway, her eyes sweeping the room carefully for signs of an intruder or a threat; but there were only the countless shelves and piles of boxes, papers and office litter, the anemic glow of the desk lamp, and the recorder sitting still and silent on the desk. She crossed to it and set the two cups in her hands down beside the cassette deck, glanced briefly down at the man on the floor (he was breathing), then shuffled through the stacks of statements strewn around the desktop. When she was again satisfied she huffed a sigh, took a very long draw of her coffee, and turned to crouch down beside him. 

There was blood in Jon’s hair and a matching smear of it on the upturned office chair, but when she combed her fingers around his scalp whatever had been there had already healed except the residual stain of a bruise. It was hard to tell if his worm-pocked skin was more ashen than normal or if the sickly and dim light was just doing him no favors, but she found no other obvious new signs of injury in a brief pat-down over the rest of him. She stood up and assumed a deliberately nonchalant lean against the desk, coffee cup in hand, and started nudging The Archivist repeatedly and insistently with her shoe. 

Beside her, the tape recorder clicked on loudly. She shot it an unimpressed glare, but it only whirred innocently along its thread in response. Seconds later there was a sharp inhalation from Jon on the ground, and she stopped prodding him to leave him to curl inwards and groan and curse in his own time, fingers groping until they found the spot on his head she had investigated earlier. 

Pointedly, she slurped her coffee. He twitched as he belatedly registered her shins in his peripheral vision, and breathily exclaimed “Basira!” as he struggled upright.   
“Had too _spooky_ and fun of a time this morning, did we?” she drawled, punctuated by another overly-casual coffee slurp. “Dabbled too deeply in some unknowable evil secrets?”

“N-no, I-” he flushed and fumbled the tipped chair back to its proper position, then slid ungracefully onto it, wincing as his hand hovered again to his head. “No,” he repeated more firmly, though he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. 

Basira watched him over the cup rim and said nothing. 

He flushed darker, fidgeting under her steady gaze. “R-really, it was… nothing like that.” He glanced away again, shoulders hunching. “I think I just… stood up too fast, actually.” 

She paused mid-theatrical-slurp and lowered the cup, tilting her head as she considered him more carefully. Even by his recent standards The Archivist was drawn and pale, the set of his expression pinched underneath his current discomfort with her open scrutiny. His jumper hung more loosely on his frame than it should, and despite his eyes skittering away from hers at every opportunity she could see they were fever-bright and tired. Wordlessly she passed him the second drink from the table, eyebrows raised as she watched him try and hide the shake in his hands as he took the cup from her with a muttered thanks.

“When was the last time you ate?” Basira asked him levelly when he’d drawn at the cup in silence for a few moments. 

Jon winced again, and gestured in frustration at the pile of papers strewn about the desk. “I had  _ just _ been-”

“No,” she interrupted, pointedly calm. “When was the last time you ate  _ food? _ ”

The nonplussed silence that stretched on in response lasted for so long, Basira had to conclude he probably literally couldn’t remember. “I… I don’t think I really still-”

“ _ Come _ on then,” she cut over him with an exaggerated eye roll and annoyed huff. “That settles it. We’re going out to lunch.”

Basira swept out of the office before he could object, waiting in the hallway until she eventually heard the sounds of shuffling papers and clinking mugs and the turning of his door lock. She took off briskly down the corridor as soon as he emerged, again before he could catch up to protest. By the time Jon had actually managed to breathlessly sidle up to her elbow, glancing nervously around like an anxious hare, they were two blocks from the Institute and staring down a row of shops and a crowd of milling shoppers. 

“This really isn’t necessary,” he muttered beside her as she eyed up their dining choices. Glancing over at him, she concluded that he honestly looked even worse in broad daylight than he had in the gloomy Archives basement. Thin, hungry, tired. He had tried for the taciturn snippiness he used to wear like armor, but instead it had just sounded small and bitter and frightened as he drew subtly closer to her at every sudden street sound. “I’m not sure it’s wise to be out in the open like this, and you don’t have to  _ mind _ me like-”

She ignored him and strode across the street into one of the pubs. She could hear the frustrated sounds he made behind her, but didn’t stop to look back; a minute later as she stood in the table queue she heard the door jangle and felt him press up at her arm again, looking agitated but too defeated to argue further. 

They were seated, and they sat. Basira cooly thumbed through a menu. Jon shifted in the booth and looked at everything and everyone in turns, dark eyes nervous and far too intense, drawing uncomfortable stares and murmurs from the other customers who turned to look around under the weight of his attention. She ordered for both of them (over his objections), and pretended to browse the news on her phone. He traced the woodgrain of the table absently and flinched when he craned his head too fast to follow a woman who passed the window on the street outside, causing her to startle and walk quite a bit faster until she had turned the corner and out of sight. When he turned back to Basira his expression was harrowed and guilty, his eyes flicking to hers and obviously expecting anger; she studiously kept her face blank and feigned being completely absorbed in whatever was on her little screen. He exhaled slowly and pressed his palms to his temples, and she continued to dutifully ignore him until he started thumbing along the dings and nicks of the table again. 

Eventually the food came. Basira had ordered twice what either of them could eat (she had every intention of expensing it to Elias), and the smell of the thick grease and breaded pub fare had made Jon go ashen again as he sat back and she enthusiastically tucked in. In reality she wasn’t hungry enough for half of it, but she had a plan and was committed to seeing it through. Jon was watching her eat now with open misery writ large in his expression, and she finally glanced up from her phone for long enough to meet his gaze. 

“Basira,  _ why are we here? _ ” he asked softly, almost a plea.

She regarded him steadily until he broke eye contact and bit his lip, waiting to see if she felt the tug of compulsion in the question, reveling in the silence when she did not. She waited until he looked up at her again, then said flatly “We aren’t here for you. I needed a break.”

The Archivist blinked at her, owlish behind his glasses, his hands stilling. Then his mouth twisted wryly and his eyebrows knit, but she waved him off as he started to speak.

“I’ve been cooped up in the Institute so much lately, it’s driving me mad, y’know? But it feels so much safer in there, nowadays, and it’s hard to go out alone. But, Daisy’s - gone - and Melanie is… and, well. Martin.” She scoffed and made a dismissive gesture. Jon shifted across from her, mouth twisting again but not wryly. Both of them sat in silence, until she continued. “So I just wanted to get out for a bit, relax somewhere that wasn’t full of musty evil files and things that want to kill us. Thanks for coming with me.”

Basira risked a glance up at Jon as she finished. He was startled but wasn’t looking at her, instead staring sightlessly across the appetizer plates in front of them, shock, guilt, and some emotion harder to place chasing across his face. She kept her expression carefully neutral still, and waited for him to recenter.

“N… no problem,” he said hoarsely after a stretch of silence so long she had started to wonder if she’d misjudged. She nodded, internally relieved, and started to eat again as though that settled things, her attention apparently returning to her phone. 

Across from her, Jon swallowed thickly and shook himself. After another span of her ignoring him and leisurely picking at the food, he hesitantly grabbed one of the mozzarella sticks, which she studiously did not watch him eat. After a few minutes, he ate another. He was still wary as he looked around the pub, but his demeanor was markedly less fearful as he took in the details of passerby’s faces and activities. More of the appetizers were vanishing gradually, and after a while Basira could see Jon begin to genuinely relax out of the corner of her eye. She started to  _ actually _ read the news on her phone. In a moment so bold and spontaneous it seemed to surprise him as much as her, Jon took her unoccupied-with-her-phone-hand across the table and squeezed it in his own. She looked up at him questioningly and raised an eyebrow, but his flummoxed expression said quite clearly that he hadn’t really planned that far ahead and had no idea where he was going with it either, so she simply left their fingers laced together for a minute or two until the next time she needed them to raid the pickle plate. 

Two hours went by that way. Basira browsing the internet or reading and Jon idly people watching, absently hoovering up food while she tried not to smirk. Occasionally he would tip his head like a hound catching a scent, his eyes darkening until he blinked the haze away and looked back to see if she’d noticed, which she dutifully pretended not to. Occasionally she would look up from her phone to watch a stranger more intensely than usual, until she was sure they were paying the two of them in their booth no more attention than was normal. Eventually the glares they were receiving from the servers for loitering so long without ordering more food were starting to grow sharp enough that Basira paid their bill (with a hefty Institute tip!) and they stood up to go.

Basira set them on a path back to the Archives; she paced herself not to outrun the shorter man this time, but to both of their surprise Jon found he wasn’t struggling to keep up. 

“You seem… much more spry than when we left,” she said carefully, trying not to look  _ too _ smug.

“I… I actually, uh. I feel a  _ lot  _ better,” he admitted begrudgingly. 

“You’re an idiot,” she informed him. 

**Author's Note:**

> for The Magnus Archives Hurt/Comfort Week - Day 1 over on Tumblr! Prompt: Self-worth Issues ♢ Pretend ♢ Shaky hands
> 
> look I just love benevolently(?) scheming Basira, ok?


End file.
